So far Facebook has been all about self-indulgence and catching up with friends. A new App, ‘Pipe’, promises to add another disruptive behaviour to the 1.2 billion-people-strong online social network: file sharing.
Launched by Berlin-based Pipe Dream Technologies earlier this week, Pipe allows Facebook users to share files up to 1 GB in size with friends through a simple drag and drop interface.
The peer-to-peer file-sharing application will work with any type of file and will deliver in real-time if the friend is online. If the friend is offline, it will place the files securely in a locker and deliver it when the recipient logs in. Users need to register for the App at www.facebook.com/pipe.
Pipe seems to blend the best of two worlds that dominate Internet traffic: bit torrents and social networking. In an infographic published in March, Intel decoded “what happens in an Internet minute” in which it revealed that in a minute, the Internet transferred close to 639,800 GB of IP data across the globe.
India, with nearly 63 million registered users in January, is the second fastest growing country for Facebook in terms of people registering every month. Torrent sites that allow peer-to-peer transfer of files are also popular among broadband users.
Poor broadband speeds, however, hamper file transfer in the Indian scenario. Most private telecom players promise broadband speeds between 2 Mbps and 8 Mbps. But online broadband speed assessment sites — such as www.speedtest.net — reveal that the average download and upload speeds are much below par.
This article has been edited to correct a factual error.
